Stash & stitching in Holland

Posted on 23rd April, 2013 by Flights of Fancy

While we were on holiday in my native Holland we visited family and friends, the beach that I used to go to both as a child and as an adult (this time with a force 7 wind blowing), the Keukenhof which was a riot of crocuses rather than the hyacinths and tulips you’d expect mid-April, and a lovely little village called Oud-Zuilen where we delivered an Austin Seven wheel (of course). We also went to the market in my home town, and one stand had some craft materials. Mostly card making and stamping stuff, but suddenly I noticed two metal rings laden with Caron Watercolours! One of the great difficulties when buying online is getting an accurate idea of colours, so being able to see them for myself was lovely, and then on top of that they turned out to be cheaper than here in England. And I’d just been given a belated birthday present by one of my aunts (the other one gave us dinner at our favourite Greek restaurant), so I spent it on some of these lovely threads.

I acquired some less unexpected stash as well; before we left for Holland I’d ordered several fabrics from the Hardanger Atelier, to be sent to my mother’s address, thus saving postage to England. I got some unexciting-but-useful Lugana and Oslo, and two small pieces of other Zweigart fabrics to try out: Colmar, a 25ct which is slightly textured (I’ve used the check version, Colmar Carré, before) and Modena, a 35 or 36ct with an unexpectedly open weave.

I also had time to stitch, and I’d brought the materials for those two Round Dozen variations that I wanted to try. Well, here they are. They are absolutely identical except for the materials – the one on the left uses white DMC perle on white Lugana with Caron Wildflowers (086 Tahiti) for the coloured bits, the one on the right is stitched on maize Lugana with standard DMC perle #8 (353 and 744) and DMC Variations perle #5 (4100). I’ll be using that combination again, those pinks and yellows look so cheerful together! And don’t the two look different; I think you could stitch quite a few birthday cards based on one design before anyone noticed they were all getting “the same one”, as long as you varied your colours!

Round Dozen variation with Caron Wildflowers

Round Dozen variation with DMC Variations perle

Different threads, different look

Posted on 14th April, 2013 by Flights of Fancy

If you’ve been following Flights of Fancy for some time you may be aware that I like silks. A lot. My budget doesn’t, but I do. Unfortunately most of these beautiful silks seem to be produced by people a long way away from the Midlands (of England, that is) – America, Australia, South Africa … One of them is Treenway, and I wrote a while ago how helpful Susan had been choosing various shades that go together. I picked several combinations with the Song of the Weather SAL in mind, but because there are so many great threads to use only one of them made it into my final selection. All the other silks just sat there, being stroked occasionally, waiting for a project.

They got their opportunity to shine when I decided to have a little stitching holiday and just do some variations on small designs I’d stitched before. Very relaxing, and very interesting to see the difference colours can make. Here, however, it wasn’t just different colours, but different textures – the difference between cottons and the lustre of reeled (or filament) silk; between the medium twist of perle cottons, the slight twist of Treenway’s 8/2 silk and the strong twist of their Fine Cord.

There is one more “variation” that I want to do: a white-and-bright, slightly adapted version of one of the Rond Dozen. After that I’ll be good and go back to stitching for the SAL, and from my Planned list. Promise.

Stitching alternatives

Posted on 26th March, 2013 by Flights of Fancy

Some of you may have noticed that the Planned page no longer has “expected” dates for each of the designs. That is because I kept having to push the dates forward when once again a deadline whooshed past me, and I was beginning to find it quite depressing and not a little stressful. Time to remind myself that all this designing and stitching is meant to be first and foremost a hobby – something I enjoy. So out went the dates, and I feel much better for it!

But even without dates there’s enough to stitch, really. I generally try to put a new design on the website roughly once a month, or a bit more often if things happen to go smoothly. But the SAL (which I am enjoying tremendously – it’s such a joy seeing all those different versions!) needs pictures of all the stitches-in-progress for the twice-monthly blog, which means stitching a second version of each month. And then friends decide to have a baby and so a card needs to be stitched (juggling colours because they have chosen not to know whether it’s a boy or a girl). And the Hardanger course at the Percival Guildhouse starts in three weeks’ time, so I’d better start getting the materials packs ready. All very pleasant things to do, but it means the Planned list gets pushed into the future once again.

So do I really need to stitch an alternative version of the first project in the Hardanger course? No, of course I don’t. The model is stitched, as are all the others for the first course (though two of them still need to be made into a needlebook), so I should sit back, relax, and get on with stitching Blackthorn. But as I was going through my perles (do you ever do that? Just have a play with all your threads and fabrics, try colours together, pet any of the really strokeable threads?) I thought, “wouldn’t it be nice to try this one on 28ct – make it a slightly better fit for a card, too, and still OK for beginners as there’s no cutting – and those dusky pinks would go together very well with that dusky pink Jobelan I’ve got somewhere in the bottom drawer; pink on pink for the neutral shade – quite a different look, just the thing to demonstrate what a difference colour and count can make” and before I knew it the dusky pink Jobelan had snuggled into a spare hoop and was showing off the perles to me. Well, how could I resist? So here’s what I’ll be stitching with over the next few evenings, and hopefully in my next post I’ll be able to show you the two versions side by side.

A silly mistake, pretty threads and a new idea

Posted on 12th March, 2013 by Flights of Fancy

Last Sunday I was sitting with an elderly friend so his daughter and wife could both go to church for Mothering Sunday, and I’d taken Happy Hour 1 with me to stitch. Of the four designs in the set, it is definitely my favourite, and it is the one that uses the threads which inspired the set, those lovely Australian Cottage Garden perles. I’d picked an opalescent 28ct Lugana to work the model on, and as we were chatting I settled down to some serious stitching. #12 satin stitch centre in Oregano green, #8 satin stitch, almost Florentine, around it in Dahlia pink. Looking good! Leaf stitch in Oregano, and then on to some triple chain stitch. I’m sure I must have seen something like it somewhere, but I couldn’t find it in any of my stitch dictionaries, so I did my own stitch diagram, and wrote the instructions. It’s basically like a detached chain stitch (also known as a lazy daisy), but instead of only one loop of thread held down with a little securing stitch, I wanted to have three loops.

I had drawn a detailed diagram. I had written a description of every step. And yet it wasn’t until I actually tried to work the stitch that I realised its fatal flaw: I would have to come up in the hole that I’d just gone down in, not once, but twice. And I hadn’t noticed!

I decided to work the plain chain stitch border instead, and re-chart the triple chain stitch when I got home. Having considered two possible solutions to the problem, I eventually settled on a small anchoring stitch, and all three loops going underneath it but all starting in separate holes. The other solution, by the way, was to start all three loops in the same hole, and to anchor each one with its own little securing stitch, which would form a line together. Either way there are three different-sized loops siting inside each other, a very pleasing effect though not what I had in mind originally. You’ll be able to see what you think about the stitch when Happy Hour goes live.

And when will that be? Possibly sooner than I had originally thought – I’m enjoying them so much that they are my main project for the moment. Having finished three of the four there was a slight wait because I didn’t have the Threadworx perles needed for the last one, but they arrived this morning from trusty old Sew & So which means it’ll probably get finished tonight after choir practice! There is more #5 than #8 in this design and so it’s a bit of a shame that the lavendery #5 is not nearly so variegated as the #8, but I was pleased with how well it went with the green; it’s always a bit of a gamble, matching colours based on what you see on a computer screen!

And finally, the new idea. As I was writing the church newsletter and looking at illustrations for the Easter services I came across one I did some time ago, which said “Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!” in various languages. One of them was Old English, the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, and I was thinking it would make rather a nice Easter project to have those Old English words surrounded by a knotwork border or something of the sort. There is no way I’m going to get anything like that charted by the end of this month, however, so watch this space when we’re getting into Lent 2014 .

Needlebook thoughts and Happy Hour revisited

Posted on 8th March, 2013 by Flights of Fancy

A while ago I finished the last two models for the first Guildhouse course. Well, they are two halves of one model, really – two small, simple squares to practice cutting, dove’s eyes and square filets. But as the course is for “refreshers” as well as for beginners, I did want to add a little twist so it wouldn’t be boring for those who had done all this before. So I decided to add a bit of bling. The students can decide whether to have the metallic thread only in the borders, or for some of the filling stitches as well.

The reason I stitched the two together is because I thought they might make rather a pretty needlebook; but as we won’t be turning it into one in class, I need a simple method which I can explain in a few lines so anyone who wants to can turn their project into a needlebook at home. Nothing too complicated with whipstitched edges, then, and preferably a method that needs hand sewing only. I’m leaning towards a double running stitch edge, backed with Vilene inside the backstitch line with some coloured felt sandwiched between, and then just cut and fray and sew in some felt pages with double running stitch down the spine. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Some of you may remember that I wrote a number of posts about how designs got their names; one of them was about Kaleidoscope, which started out life as Happy Hour because the four designs were meant to provide a happy hour’s stitching (if you’re a very quick stitcher …) and then be made into coasters. However, they got renamed and so I was left with a name without a design to go with it. This is not as unusual or as odd as it sounds; in my Notes folder there is a list of names which I hope will one day lead to a design. Last week, the time was finally ripe for Happy Hour.

Why? Because last week Tracy sent me those beautiful Cottage Garden threads. I wanted to do something with them, now – well, very soon, anyway. But what? I could use them for one of the Stitch-Along months, as I’m stitching them all again for the SAL blog using speciality threads, but that didn’t seem quite right. They should have a new design of their own! Something small and simple that would show off the threads. Something like Kaleidoscope … four small designs … lots of satin stitch but also some other stitches for variety … two colours each … why not use a different brand of hand-dyed perle for each one? … but Cottage Garden only comes in #8 and #12, so do two of them on 28ct? … and not much cutting, with the option of not cutting at all … Happy Hour was taking shape! You’ll have to wait and see what threads and colours I eventually decided on, but here is a small peek at what the foursome will look like:

Happy Hour

Stitchers are the kindest people

Posted on 2nd March, 2013 by Flights of Fancy

The Australians do some beautiful hand-dyed threads, but some of them aren’t easy to get hold of if you’re not in Australia. One of the companies producing these variegated and multi-coloured pretties is Cottage Garden, and – of great interest to any Hardanger enthusiast – they do perles. #8 and #12 to be precise, so particularly good for 28ct or 32ct fabric; they’d probably work on 25ct as well as long as the contrast between thread and fabric isn’t too great.

The wonderful thing is that I will now be able to try that out for myself, since a very kind fellow-stitcher sent me two shades in both thicknesses – what a lovely surprise this morning when it turned out that the postman had brought, besides the usual bills, a parcel from Australia out of which dropped a gorgeous combination of pink and green! And just when I had been struggling with my email program which had managed to lose all its data and do the same to the main backup (good thing I keep a second backup). Tracy-from-Australia, you’re a star; thank you for brightening up my day with your kind and thoughtful gift!

West End Embroidery are brilliant!

Posted on 28th February, 2013 by Flights of Fancy

If I were wearing a hat I would take it off to Yvonne at West End Embroidery. Throughout the ordering process she has exhibited the patient of a saint as I kept asking for things that weren’t available or changing my mind about the colours I needed. And very reasonable prices too – highly recommended!

One of the problems, as I explained a few posts ago, is that West End Embroidery are pretty much the only online shop in the UK to stock Dinky Dyes perles, and they are phasing them out. Sew & So will order them in for me with no minimum order, but they are quite a bit more expensive; and both Yvonne at W E E and Margaret at Little Thread Shop said they couldn’t just order one or two skeins, which is perfectly understandable. Now for the Guildhouse project I showed you last time I will need about 50 yards of a hand-dyed perle #8; the one I used in the model is Dinky Dyes 095 Airlie which is very pretty and of which I have about half a skein left. Yvonne had only the one left, so on to Plan B – email Margaret as she had said she could order in if I wanted at least three of one shade. Unfortunately Margaret had already placed her order with DD and wouldn’t re-order in time for the course. It was clearly time for Plan C.

Earlier this week I telephoned West End Embroidery to make sure that all the chopping and changing I’d done hadn’t irreparably messed up my order, and she was very patient and helpful; for one thing I learnt that it was not just my imagination that there can be an awful lot of difference between Dinky Dyes dye lots. It doesn’t matter too much in my designs as I tend to use them as the only colour in an otherwise neutral piece (like Douglas, Heather and Round the World), but it’s something to bear in mind. She then suggested that I look at Threadworx perles as a possible alternative.

That was inspired. I do, in fact, use them already (in Scotland the Brave and the coloured version of Lviv), but they are not one of the “default” brands I think of when choosing threads. And there are so many lovely colours! The one I would have used for preference in the Guildhouse piece is the one I used for Lviv. It’s not a direct match for DD Airlie, but it’s got that same multi-coloured pastel look.

Unfortunately it only comes in stranded cotton and perle #5, so I took the Threadworx perle #8 page as my starting point to find a few possibles. The only pastel rainbow one is a bit too sweet for my taste, and Bradley’s Balloons, though fun, is perhaps just a touch too bright. In the end I settled on a colour that isn’t in the least like Dinky Dyes Airlie, but which I think will look quite striking – 1040 Shanghai Nights. I’ll let you know when the threads arrive (and whether I managed to order what I meant to order)!

Happy with fabrics, unhappy with horticulture

Posted on 20th February, 2013 by Flights of Fancy

Let’s get the unhappy part over with first, then at least I can end on a happy note! The problem (besides having a new network & computers installed over the weekend which has caused a certain amount of upheaval) is Walled Garden. I’m hoping to use it as my new design for the Counted Wishes Festival in March, but that rather depends on getting it stitched to my liking and writing the chart pack for it, and I’m getting stuck on the first part.

The walls (Kloster blocks and a textured border) were fine, they came out as I had hoped. The satin stitch florals were OK too, with the Caron colours working as intended. The backstitch additions turned out according to plan as well. Then came the time to add some cheerful yellow in the shape of knots (either French or colonial, according to your preference). First I added some to the hearts of the blue flowers – which, incidentally, I had intended to be vaguely like periwinkles but which reminded one fellow stitcher of clematis; so much for my botanical accuracy! Anyway, I liked the effect of the knots there, so I continued with the rest of the knots, which formed swirly lines between satin stitch leaves. And they just look wrong. On paper they’re fine, but on the fabric I simply do not like them. And yet it needs that touch of yellow, and I still think knots of some sort are the way to go. I’ll have to do some serious re-charting over the weekend, and probably some unpicking and restitching as well!

On to more pleasant things. First a little more stash to show off, my most recent order from the Little Thread Shop. Some Weeks Dye Works perles, and Caron threads; the bright green is Jade, which I had in Impressions (their silk/wool blend) and used in my father-in-law’s 90th birthday card. I so enjoyed the shade that I decided to get the “companion threads” to it. The others are sheer indulgence – I have no purpose for them yet but I just loved the colours.

I am also awaiting an order of threads for the Guildhouse course from West End Embroidery including some Dinky Dyes perles. I contacted Jo at Dinky Dyes to ask about UK stockists, and something she said about concentrating on their silks made me slightly worried that the cotton perles might be under threat, but fortunately she reassured me that they have no plans to discontinue them; they just don’t promote them as vigorously as their silks. Heather and Douglas are safe *phew*.

And finally, the fabrics. I’d asked Kate at Sparklies whether she did hand-dyed Hardanger fabric, and she said she didn’t, but she could – and she did! Here are the three fabrics I’ll be using in the September course: 28ct Lugana Aries (for the bookmarks), and 22 ct Hardanger Thalia (purple) and Ocean Depths (blue-green). They’ll be stitched with Antique White threads and beads for contrast. I’m really looking forward to stitching the models, so I’d better get Walled Garden sorted out as soon as possible.

More threads – fewer threads

Posted on 13th February, 2013 by Flights of Fancy

I’ve been adding some very pretty threads to my collection over the past few weeks, and one of the pleasant things about ordering them has been the discovery that stitchers are just Very Nice People! Margaret at the Little Thread Shop, Susan at Treenway Silks and Yvonne at West End Embroidery have all been really helpful, ordering things in, comparing colours, finding out about threads and so on. Strictly speaking I do not know whether all or any of them are actually stitchers themselves, but they are definitely stitch-associated, so I think that counts .

Here are the goodies that came in from the Little Thread Shop a week or so ago; including postage they came to less than 60% of what I would have paid if I’d bought them in the UK, which is pretty good going! These are Weeks Dye Works perles (only #5, unfortunately, so I had to source the #8 elsewhere – hats off to Sew & So who as usual took a day to get them to me) and Caron threads; the lovely variegated orange at the bottom is Calabasa, which I used in my latest Guildhouse project.

And then there were the silks I ordered from Treenway. One of the things I like about both these American suppliers is that they are happy to send orders using First Class post (I hope I got the name right), which means postage on these orders was between $4 and $6. I will come back to that a bit later on, but first things first, the silks. Don’t you just love unwrapping an order of threads or fabrics or beads and simply enjoying the look and feel of them? That’s what I did with these – they are terribly tactile, and need to be stroked and handled. I don’t care if the oils in my hands mean that at some Antiques Roadshow in 2213 the expert will tut and say “oh dear, these silks have been handled far too much, they’re disintegrating”; it is simply impossible not to pet these beautiful threads.

Some of the colours I chose to match some I already have, some are new matching pairs (like Mandalay and Faded Rose, the muted pinks in the middle of the bottom row), and one is a top-up (Tangiers, second left of the top row). The ribbon, which is Tangiers as well, I got especially to go with the colour combination I showed you some time ago, with the dark wine red fabric. I have since found that some Miyuki beads I picked up at the Knitting & Stitching Show will go beautifully with that, so now all I need is a project for them.

So why the “fewer threads” in the title? That’s because I’m finding some threads harder and harder to find, certainly here in England, and some overseas suppliers are pricing themselves out of the market (at least my market) with their shipping charges. I have just placed an order with West End Embroidery for some Petite Treasure Braid, WDW perle #8, and Dinky Dyes perles. It’s the DD perles which are the problem – Yvonne told me they are fasing them out and won’t be replacing any that they sell. This means that as far as I know there isn’t an online shop in the UK that sells Dinky Dyes cotton perles (Sew & So sell the silk perles, but they don’t come in the same range of colours and are obviously much more expensive). Margaret at the Little Thread Shop said she’s happy to order them in for me, but I’d have to order at least three of each colour, which is more than I need. I did find one or two shops in the US which sell the cotton perles, but their shipping charges make it impractical to order from them; at one shop I chucked 20 skeins into the virtual shopping basket as an experiment, and found that postage to the UK would be about $36! So if any of you know of a supplier that sells these threads and whose p&p to the UK is reasonable, please let me know – I’d very much like to keep using Dinky Dyes’ pretty perles.

A finish, a near miss and a new product

Posted on 7th February, 2013 by Flights of Fancy

Father-in-law’s birthday weekend went very well, we had a wonderful time with all the family and everyone enjoyed themselves (even when several of us got up to sing an appropriately rewritten version of “Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines” in honour of FIL’s flying days). I managed to get the card finished before we set off, but forgot to photograph it. I did take a picture of the completed stitching, though, and here it is, with silver filling stitches:

Of course I couldn’t possibly go off for a long weekend without my stitching bag, but I wasn’t sure which project to take. Walled Garden was calling to me loudly – all those pretty colours in my project folder waiting to be used – but it’s a bit too big for a travel project, so I decided on a model stitch for the next Guildhouse course. It’s a variation on Round Dozen, using double wrapped bars and spider’s web filling stitches. A nice quick stitch, not too complicated and the perfect opportunity to try out a new Caron colour, Calabasa, a warm and sunny variegated orange. Like the Appalachia/Jade combination, this one is definitely going to get used more often! Perhaps with Daffodil, another cheerful, sunny colour.

Remember I called this little project “not too complicated”? Famous last words … I’d done all the surface stitching, Kloster blocks, brick stitch, satin stitch, Queen’s stitch, everything, and had started to cut. I’d completed about half the cutting when I came to a Kloster block that made me stop in my tracks. It took me a while to work out why it had set the alarm bells ringing, and then I realised – I’d stitched two of the block’s five satin stitches into one hole!

A mistake in my Kloster blocks

There was no way I could cut along the Kloster block like that; the fabric thread at the bottom of the block was unsecured and although it was unlikely to make the whole thing unravel, it would certainly be a weak spot. It also looked wrong, would forever annoy me, and set a very bad example for my students. At that point I could have decided to give up on it and restitch the whole thing, but that would have been rather a waste of time and material, so I attempted a rescue operation. I cut the perle #5 on the corner where the misshapen Kloster block met its neighbour, carefully unpicked both blocks and fastened off the two cut ends. I then restitched the two unpicked blocks, pulling less firmly than usual so I wouldn’t distort the fabric threads that had already been cut. It worked, and with a sigh of relief I resumed my cutting. Can you tell from the photograph which was the rogue Kloster block? I can’t. So if you ever find that you have miss-stitched a Kloster block, or accidentally cut your stitching while cutting the fabric, don’t be too down-hearted – you may very well be able to salvage it!

During the courses I teach I like to suggest ways of finishing projects; this project and another Round Dozen variation which I haven’t stitched yet are just the right size to be made into coasters. You can see two sets in the Gallery, one using Round the Year, and the other using Kaleidoscope. As I was considering how many coasters I would need to get for the students, I thought I might as well order in some more and make them available on Mabel’s Fancies! They’re really nice ones with rounded corners, and quite hard-wearing – the one below has been in constant use on the little table by my stitching chair for the past eighteen months or so, and apart from a few very slight scratches it’s absolutely fine, and still shows the stitching off a treat.

You can find the coasters on the Squissors & Kits page, per pair or in a set of 4.

Flights of Fancy

Mabel's musings on anything stitchy

Category Archives: Materials & Equipment